Tag Archives: Campus

Town Hall at Brandywine

Posted on March 13, 2012 by | Leave a comment

In late February, 2012, the Brandywine campus held a town hall meeting on instructional space.

They responded to the three questions we have asked at each Town Hall meeting:

  1. What elements of the current model work?
  2. What challenges have you encountered with the current scheduling model?
  3. What should Penn State’s top 5 priorities be?

Brandywine is pleased with the ease of access students have to their recommended academic plans and with the good communication between faculty in the disciplines to avoid scheduling conflicts.  They have a standardized block scheduling system with flexibility for late day and evening times.

They articulated difficulties surrounding the conflict between student and faculty needs. Students need regular block times and they need majors to publish schedules in advance, while faculty have preferences for certain days and times.  Also, there is not enough flexibility for larger blocks of classes.  There also seems to be an issue with the billing date, because students know that if they schedule late, they will be billed later, but this causes a problem with low enrollments for classes, etc.

Here are the priorities they established:

  1. Determine which disciplines prefer which type of schedule (MWF or TR)
  2. Take into account audience for each course/discipline (day vs. evening, traditional vs. adult)
  3. Block classes: consider 8am start with longer class time, consider adjusting the Common Hour (is one a day required?)
  4. Accommodate different teaching styles (longer classes, web courses)
  5. Computer labs are often needed occasionally, not every class; could a rotation process work?

Thoughts and comments are welcome.

Thanks to Joanna McGowan, campus registrar, for providing notes from this meeting.

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Town Hall at Beaver Campus

Posted on March 11, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Penn State Beaver held an Instructional Space Town Hall meeting in late February.

They responded to the three questions we have asked at each Town Hall meeting:

  1. What elements of the current model work?
  2. What challenges have you encountered with the current scheduling model?
  3. What should Penn State’s top 5 priorities be?

At Beaver, a campus scheduler coordinates the schedule using “instructional groups” to facilitate the various faculty scheduling needs.  Faculty seem to be very involved in the scheduling process, to the benefit of the entire process.

There remain a lack of computer classrooms and it is difficult for faculty to obtain the classrooms they most need for their teaching.  There are some general issues with scheduling popular courses, like Spanish, in ways that don’t conflict with other courses.

The top scheduling priorities identified at Beaver were:

  1. To ensure that student needs for timely graduation are met
  2. Maximize classroom availability
  3. Athlete schedules
  4. Faculty needs to maximize pedagogical innovation
  5. More flexibility: utilize non-standard times more effectively
  6. Reconsider the “common hour” schedule block

Thanks to Gloria Descheler, for the notes on this town hall meeting.

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Town Hall at York

Posted on March 9, 2012 by | Leave a comment

On February 28, 2012, the York campus held a town hall meeting on instructional space.  There were about 20 faculty in attendance, the Chancellor, the Dean for Academic Affairs (DAA), Instructional Design Specialist, someone from DUS, the Director of Student Affairs, the Continuing Education Director and Registrar staff.  The meeting lasted one and a half hours.

They responded to two of the three questions we have asked at each Town Hall meeting:

  1. What elements of the current model work?
  2. What challenges have you encountered with the current scheduling model?

There was general agreement that the current model prioritizes students, which was recognized as a positive.  York does not use the semester rollover, but the schedule is built by the registrar’s office in close consultation with the DAA.  The scheduling needs of students is becoming more complex – graduate courses need to be scheduled, students often don’t follow the recommended sequence through their major, and there are increasing General Education needs that must be taken into consideration.  The existing scheduling system is not flexible enough to handle this complexity.

There was then a general discussion of future possibilities and other questions.  In that discussion, it was suggested that a new scheduling system should be able to more effectively use the weekend to good academic effect.  There was talk of establishing a Weekend College that would tie in with the Hanover public library and YMCA to provide childcare and activities for kids while their parents are taking classes.  There was concern that we take time to find out what students really want, rather than rely on impressions from informal polls faculty have taken in classes.  There was interest in planning more effectively for blended course offerings.

The main priority that emerged was making sure that we are attending to student needs (as opposed to their desires).

Finally, there was significant discussion about why there is a need to maintain a “locked-in” schedule with UP.  The non-traditional students at York might do better with a much different basic scheduling plan.

Thanks to Frank Miller, Registrar at York, for submitting the notes from this meeting.

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Town Hall at Wilkes-Barre

Posted on March 7, 2012 by | Leave a comment

On February 21, 2012, the Wilkes-Barre campus held a town hall meeting on instructional space.  There were four students, five faculty members and two staff members present.

They responded to the three questions we have asked at each Town Hall meeting:

  1. What elements of the current model work?
  2. What challenges have you encountered with the current scheduling model?
  3. What should Penn State’s top 5 priorities be?

The issue of advising seems to have been central to the discussion at Wilkes-Barre.  Students there mostly commute, so there are issues of scheduling associated with the need for students to juggle full-time class schedules and part-time job schedules.

Here are the priorities they established:

  1. Make advising more intrusive and more accessible. Students need to realize the importance of advising from day one because if they get out of sequence with course scheduling, this can extend their time in college.
  2. First-Year Seminar – students and faculty strongly support the FYS courses and feel they could address some of the advising issues and keep students on track with their academic progress.
  3. More creative scheduling –more hybrid or blended learning courses.
  4. Technology should be incorporated into every curriculum and used as a supplement for the traditional face-to-face course offerings.
  5. Cost-cutting should NOT be the driving force behind scheduling of classes. Offering a class two times/week as opposed to three times/week should be for pedagogical reasons, not convenience of faculty or finances of the commuter.
  6. We should collaborate with neighboring campuses to allow Wilkes-Barre students to travel to Worthington Scranton and vice versa, to get a needed course. Also, Polycom is a creative technology that can be used more.

Thoughts and comments are welcome.

Thanks to Margie Esopi for submitting the notes from this meeting.

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